Epistemic rights may include the right to believe, or the
right not to believe, a given proposition, as well as the right to hold, or the
right not to hold, a particular belief or set of beliefs. Epistemic rights may
also include the right to assert, or the right not to assert, something, as
well as the right to claim, or the right not to claim, knowledge of something. Thus, there may be positive as well as negative epistemic rights.
Epistemic rights may also include
the right to affirm or deny the truth of a proposition. They may also include
the right to take the truth of a proposition as evidence for the truth of other
propositions. They may also include the right to withhold judgment about the
truth or falsehood of a proposition.
They may also include
the right to expect a particular event to occur, given the occurrence of
previous events as a result of which that event could reasonably, safely, and reliably
be expected to occur. If our expectations of the occurrence of an event turn
out to be unjustified, then we must question whether we did indeed have a right
to expect that event to occur, given the occurrence of the previous events on
which our expectations of its occurrence were founded.
According to Fred Dretske (2000),
the epistemic right to believe a proposition p (or to accept p as true) may
entail an epistemic duty (obligation, or responsibility) to justify that belief
in the truth of p. From an epistemic standpoint, we may have the right, or may be entitled,
to believe p only if we can epistemically justify that belief in the truth of p. However,
there may be cases in which we believe p or accept p as true (perhaps because p’s truth has been established by reliable methods), despite the fact that we
may have good reasons for believing p to be false. In such cases, we may
perhaps have a right to believe things that we are not completely justified in
believing.1
Thus, Dretske raises
the question of whether there may in some cases be epistemic rights to hold
beliefs without corresponding epistemic duties to justify those beliefs.
It may be argued to the contrary,
however, that the extent of any epistemic right that we may have to hold a
particular belief or set of beliefs depends on the extent to which we are able to epistemically
justify that belief or set of beliefs. We may have an epistemic duty not to believe a proposition p unless there
is sufficient evidence of the truth of p. We may also, before believing p, have an epistemic
duty to consider any evidence that may refute or disprove p.
From an epistemic standpoint, we are
therefore not entitled to believe whatever we want to believe (about p, or
about some other proposition, occurrence, or event) and not consider whether
our beliefs are epistemically warranted or justified. We are only entitled to
hold those beliefs for which there is sufficient epistemic warrant or
justification (although such warrant or justification may be defined in a
variety of ways).
The epistemic right to believe p may
also depend on the absence of significant defects in our perceptual status or
cognitive function that could impair the epistemic merits of our belief in the truth of p.
From an internalist standpoint, the
extent of any epistemic right to believe in something depends only on factors
internal to the believer (e.g. the believer’s ability to justify his/her
beliefs on the basis of previous experience or on the basis of what he/she
already knows). From an externalist standpoint, however, the extent of any
epistemic right to believe in something depends on factors external to the
believer (e.g. the facts that actually hold in the given situation, regardless
of the believer’s ability to justify his/her beliefs on the basis of previous
experience or on the basis of what he/she already knows).
Thus, a number of consequences logically follow
from epistemic deontologism (the theory that knowledge requires the fulfillment
of principles of epistemic duty) and from the recognition by Descartes, Locke,
William K. Clifford, and others that epistemic rights and duties may be
inseparable and may go hand in hand.
If we have an epistemic right or
entitlement to believe in the truth of a proposition p, then we must be epistemically
justified in believing p. We are within our epistemic rights to believe p only if
we have good reasons or sufficient epistemic grounds to believe p. If we have
fulfilled our epistemic duty to believe p only on the basis of sufficient
evidence of p, then we may have the epistemic right to believe p.
If we believe p but p turns out to be false, then our justification for
believing p may be questioned, and so may our epistemic right to believe p. P’s
turning out to be false may indicate that we were not actually justified in
believing p. Our purported or alleged justification for believing p may have
been merely a supposed and not an actual epistemic justification for believing p.
It may also be argued that the
epistemic right to believe p depends on the epistemic rationality,
defensibility, and justifiability of believing p. Thus, approaches to epistemic rationalization and justification include epistemic foundationalism, reliabilism,
coherentism, and reliance on authoritative or expert testimony.
It may also be argued that even if
we are not aware or do not know that we believe p, we may still have an
epistemic duty not to believe p unless there is sufficient evidence of p. Our unconscious beliefs may influence
our conscious beliefs, and may in some cases function as motives for our
actions, and thus we may be obligated to ensure, to the extent that this is possible, that
all our beliefs (conscious or unconscious) are epistemically justified.
If we have no epistemic grounds, reasons,
or justification for believing p, then we may have no epistemic right to
believe p. We may also have no right to believe p if we know p to be false. To
knowingly hold false beliefs may be a dereliction of our epistemic duty to
ensure, to the extent that this is possible, that all our beliefs are epistemically
justified.
William K. Alston (1988) offers a cautionary point of view with regard to epistemic deontologism by arguing that this approach to epistemic
justification is viable only insofar as it holds that we are not blameworthy
for beliefs that are epistemically justified. To the extent that we have not
violated any epistemic rules or principles in forming our beliefs, we may be
deontologically justified in holding those beliefs.2
Alston maintains that many of our beliefs are not under our voluntary control, and that we may therefore not be blameworthy for holding those beliefs. Many of our beliefs may be involuntary
and may be incapable of being deontologically justified. Moreover, even if we
have fulfilled our duty to epistemically justify our beliefs, we may still not
be justified in supposing that the grounds for those beliefs are in fact
adequate.3 These findings, according to Alston, are not sufficiently accounted for by deontological theories of epistemic justification.
Just as epistemic rights or
entitlements may be relative rather than absolute, so may epistemic duties or
responsibilities. A relative epistemic right to believe p may entail a relative
epistemic duty to justify that belief. A (merely) relative epistemic right to
believe p may also be grounded on a (merely) relative epistemic justification
for believing p.
With regard to the relation between
epistemic and moral rights, an epistemic right to believe p may also be a moral
right to believe p if the believer has fulfilled his/her epistemic duty to epistemically
justify that belief, and if this epistemic duty is also a moral duty. In other
words, if the believer is not only epistemically, but also morally obligated to
epistemically justify a belief in order to rightly hold that belief, then the
right to hold that belief is not only an epistemic, but also a moral right.
However, epistemic rights may differ
from moral rights insofar as there may be situations in which we have the moral
right to assent to the truth of a proposition p even though we have no
epistemic right to do so (such as when we do not actually know p to be true, or
when we know p to be false). There may be situations in which moral duty is in conflict with epistemic duty, such as when telling the truth to a person may
unnecessarily offend or cause harm to that person or to some other person(s). We may have
the epistemic right, if we know p to be true, to affirm p as true, but we may
not always have the moral right.
With regard to the relation between
epistemic and legal rights, an epistemic right to believe p may also be a legal
right to believe p if it is legally protected (although most commonly, it is the
freedom to believe p that is legally protected, rather than a particular form
or expression of that belief in the truth of p).
Epistemic rights may differ from
legal rights insofar as some laws may be based on false premises or fallacious reasoning and may thus be epistemically unjustified. In such cases, we may
have the epistemic right to affirm a proposition p as true (if we know p to be
true), but we may not have the legal right.
Legal rights may also differ from
moral rights insofar as some laws may be morally unjust, cruel, inhumane, or
deleterious to basic human rights. In such cases, we may have the moral right
to affirm principles of charity and compassion, but we may not have the legal
right.
FOOTNOTES
1Fred Dretske, “Entitlement: Epistemic Rights
Without Epistemic Duties?” in Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LX, No. 3, May 2000, p. 595.
2William Alston, “The Deontological Conception of
Epistemic Justification,” in Philosophical
Perspectives, Vol. 2, Epistemology (1988), p. 284.
3Ibid.,
p. 292.
REFERENCES
Altschul, Jon. “Epistemic Entitlement,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011), at
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ep-en/.
Alston, William, “The Deontological Conception of Epistemic
Justification,” in Philosophical
Perspectives, Vol. 2, Epistemology (1988), pp. 257-299.
Clifford, William K. “The Ethics of Belief,” in Contemporary Review, 1877, pp. 289-309.
Dretske, Fred. “Entitlement: Epistemic Rights Without Epistemic
Duties?” in Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, Vol. LX, No. 3, May 2000, pp. 591-606.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant:
The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
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